Retiring pediatrician reflects on 57 years of progress

Medical assistant Betty Semanza, left, was one of many staffers who gave Dr. Frank Kellogg a heartfelt hug on his last working day. "We will miss you" signs and words of appreciation are plastered throughout his Santa Ana office. Kellogg says although he's retiring from the medical group where he has worked for years, he hopes to continue working as a pediatrician part-time.PHOTO BY CINDY YAMANAKA, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

From Dr. Kellogg:

"If you like kids, they can tell. And vice-versa. It’s not that you have to be a buddy with the kid. They can tell if you respect them." -- Dr. Frank Kellogg.

If you think today's world can be a perilous place for children, imagine life in the 1950s.

Seat belts in cars were not widely used, much less required. A kid wearing a bike helmet would have been mocked mercilessly. The child-resistant safety cap for prescription medication wasn't invented until 1967.

"Back then, we'd get a lot of poisonings," said Dr. L. Frank Kellogg, who opened his pediatric practice in Garden Grove in 1956, along with his partner, Dr. Robert Patterson. "In the early years of the practice, we had a deal: He'd sew up the lacerations if I'd pump the stomachs."

Kellogg described how a child would have this done: "You'd restrain them so they couldn't resist, and have a tube as thick as your thumb to put down the stomach and wash water in and out until the medicine came out."

Take a moment to shudder. Now let's take another moment to mark an incredible career. Kellogg, who turned 87 last week, has now retired from his post at St. Joseph Heritage Medical Group in Santa Ana. He said goodbyes to his tearful staff at the office and packed up the many flowers and gifts bestowed by colleagues and former patients.

His last patient on his last day was not a child but a woman: Cathy Pantelic, 21. Kellogg had been her primary-care physician since she was an infant. She's a senior at UCLA, Kellogg's alma mater, and plans to go to law school. She drove from Santa Monica just to make this appointment, although she didn't really need to see Kellogg for anything except to say thanks and good luck.

"I'm finally growing up," she said. "This is like the last thing that was needed."

Kellogg remembers the days before there were ways to prevent diseases like polio, which ravaged children and families during the first half of the 20th century. The disease was virtually eradicated because of vaccines put into widespread use in the 1950s and '60s.

"It was really terrible. Everybody knew somebody who had polio. It was a big fear of the mothers. And the vaccines came in and eliminated it," he said. "Because of the vaccine, I don't even have to think of it now. What a relief."

He has a modern but flexible view of vaccines: He urges parents to stick to the established pediatric vaccination schedule, but he acknowledges there's "a lot of emotion in it."

"My main concern is to get the kids immunized," he said. "So if people decide we want some unorthodox schedule, that's OK, too, to go along with it. Not so good the ones who don't like vaccines at all. Some offices kick them out, saying, 'I'm not going to be liable if this doesn't work out.' I wouldn't do that, because their best bet of getting immunized is to finally convince them that it's OK to go ahead with this in some measure. That's their best hope."

He feels the same about the vaccine to prevent human papillomavirus, which can lead to cervical cancer and genital warts. Boys and girls are recommended to get three doses of the vaccine around age 11 or 12, but the subject is sometimes awkward with parents, because the virus is spread through sexual contact.

"The parents think if we do this, it means they may have sex with somebody someday, which is true," he said. "But it's not really related to that. It prevents nothing but the HPV. There's still half a dozen other things you can get by being sexually active, you're not protected against.

"So it's a good way of finding out about the parents. You keep working at it, until they finally agree."

Pantelic said Kellogg told her and her brother, now 23, about the HPV vaccine before they even knew what the virus was about. "Initially my parents were kind of weird about getting it, because it was new. But he said, 'Everything's been checked.'"

Medical assistant Betty Semanza, left, was one of many staffers who gave Dr. Frank Kellogg a heartfelt hug on his last working day. "We will miss you" signs and words of appreciation are plastered throughout his Santa Ana office. Kellogg says although he's retiring from the medical group where he has worked for years, he hopes to continue working as a pediatrician part-time. PHOTO BY CINDY YAMANAKA, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Dr. Frank Kellogg, 87, joked that he didn't know to work the elevator. But he preferred to take the stairs during his 15 years at St. Joseph Heritage in Santa Ana. It's one of his secrets for staying so fit. PHOTO BY CINDY YAMANAKA, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Cathy Pantelic, 21, was Kellogg's last patient of his last day in the office. Her parents lived in Garden Grove for years and now live in Lake Forest. Both she and her brother, 23, had been going to Kellogg as their primary-care physician ever since they were babies. "He's amazing," she said. "My parents are always like, 'How are we going to replace him?' We've always gone to him." PHOTO BY CINDY YAMANAKA, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Barbara Basile, left, had been Kellogg's assistant for a half-century. She gets emotional with another assistant, Martha Flores. PHOTO BY CINDY YAMANAKA, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Kellogg left his Santa Ana office with balloons, streamers and words of appreciation. He asked his staff to not toss the balloons and festive keepsakes. Kellogg would leave the next day for a pediatric convention in New York and will be back for his things. His staff told him not to be a stranger. CINDY YAMANAKA, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
This photo from the 1952-53 yearbook of the aircraft carrier USS Antietam shows Dr. Kellogg during "sick call," examining sailors. Kellogg was in the Navy during World War II, and served aboard the ship during the Korean War after getting called to active duty from the Naval Reserve. PHOTO COURTESY OF FRANK KELLOGG

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